


Only for the Living

by xoxothesubwayfugitive



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, look I'm not going to put every drug tag on it but they do drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoxothesubwayfugitive/pseuds/xoxothesubwayfugitive
Summary: Minerva and Remus find themselves soothing their scars from war with illicit potions, and when opportunity presents itself, they begin selling them as well. Their reach is small and they operate out of some sense of responsibility to others like them in society - that is, until Lucius Malfoy steps in and opens doors they never knew existed.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Lucius Malfoy
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea hatched from a comment by a friend, and honestly it's probably not fleshed out enough for me to be boldly charging into another WIP. But I really like the concept so far and it challenges me in ways my other stories don't so...here you are

When did it start?

Hard to remember now, really. Some point during the first War, when the living had become too much. When she could, when there was a sliver of time long enough to sleep, she would take a sip herself. Not enough to do for her what it did for her clients, but enough to forget she was needed so desperately. Every day there was a new student with a dead mother or a lost older brother, and then when class ended there was endless plotting, and time to watch her own old charges go out into the night and never come back. So yes, a little bit of living death suited her just fine, and she wasn't stingy with it either.

But some of them got too dependent. She couldn't blame them. Horace Slughorn, for one, could have brewed it himself, but he never had the foresight for when the nightmares would take him. She could count on him showing up, half begging, about once a month. And Remus, oh Remus. Minerva felt horrible for what she had done to Remus. She was the only one who knew where he was most of the time. Who else could she tell? Severus would have despised to hear of him, Dumbledore had too much on his mind, the Weasleys could barely keep their own house standing up.

Remus needed something to do. He needed money, and when Wolfsbane was invented and they found out how much it would cost, he needed more. Minerva could never be seen herself down Knockturn Alley, offering vials to those who were too dejected to get out of the gutter; unfortunately, Remus, torn to shreds at his own hands, fit in better there than anywhere else. So he was her first recruit – a very tidy agreement, they both thought. They knew one another well, and was it really so bad, what they were doing? Draught of Living Death doesn't kill a person. At least not the one taking it.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy was never a part of their plan. How many people have said that over the years, only to have found him slid in exactly where he didn't belong? One day he caught Remus (quite literally too, with his cane by the shirt collar) in the middle of a deal, and gave him the option to name his boss or be turned in – which is how Minerva found Lucius standing outside her door one blistering July day, beaming the smile of a victor.

In the summers she lived alone in a cottage handed down by a maiden aunt. It seemed appropriate to choose it over her childhood home, leaving that instead to her brother and his large family. She enjoyed the peace of the rolling fields around her as a change from stampedes of childish feet. Lucius, polished and out of place on her doorstep, looked at it as if it was an absolute dump.

"I haven't seen you since you left school, Lucius," she said, handing him a cup of tea. "Although I know about your more…shocking…exploits."

"Then you know it was all lies in the eyes of the Wizengamot," he answered. "I'm just an old family man now, puttering about in the countryside."

An owl zipped past the window then, dropping something through the mail slot. She could tell Remus's handwriting from a distance. Whatever it was had been written on a scrap and sealed poorly.

"Yes, Lucius, and how is your fam –"

"I found your errand boy out in the street this morning," Lucius interrupted, putting his teacup aside and leaning forward. "What a strange business for you to enter."

Minerva locked her jaw as she so often did when she was trying to maintain classroom order, but she could not stop a furrow from appearing between her eyes. Lucius Malfoy was rumored to be joining the School Governors in the fall, and even if he wasn't, she and Remus had still done wrong. The Draught was regulated, only to be sold from Apothecaries or taught in schools and then confiscated. Lucius would tell, of course he would. He was still looking for rungs to climb as he sought to get his reputation back as it had been.

"And?" she finally said, and then sealed her mouth tightly again.

"It seems a lost opportunity. One pusher, the same crowd day in and day out. Only you brewing."

She stayed silent, only sipping tea.

"I know how to brew it," he went on. "That, and great number of other nasty things I doubt you've dared to attempt."

"Mr. Malfoy, this is really getting ridiculous."

"I don't think it is. You're terrified, but I have your solution right here. No one needs to find out. No one ever does when I'm involved."

Minerva rose, and he stood with her.

"So what, then?" she asked. "What happens now?"

"Just shake my hand," Lucius smiled, "and I'll be in touch."

After he left, Minerva bent to take up Remus's tattered note.

_Malfoy found me. I'm sorry._

She crumpled it up and banged her head against the door.

* * *

Lucius _could_ brew, she knew that. One of the many infuriating things about him was how well he had always done in school, and he had been the top of his class in Potions. A note came the next day inviting her to see his lab, and it turned out to be almost as large as the one at Hogwarts, and twice as finely equipped.

Lucius greeted her out of the Floo in a very large, echoing drawing room. For all the gilded finishes, it was sparsely furnished, and he seemed to note her puzzlement.

"This is not the family wing," he said simply, and gestured her down a flight of narrow stone steps.

"Narcissa –" she started to ask, and as was apparently his habit, he cut her off.

"Narcissa is well, thank you. She and Draco are with her parents this afternoon. She doesn't like to hear about all my boring endeavors."

He sat her at one of the long benches and showed her a ledger book of all the ingredients he had in stock, and his mouth curled as he watched her begin to understand everything that was at their disposal. So many things she had never had access to before now lay at her fingertips.

"This is Severus's writing," she pointed out.

"Severus lived here during the War. He enjoyed working with me."

"Do you plan for him to be involved?" she asked.

"Severus is a great friend," Lucius replied, reaching across her and closing the book. "But not for this."

* * *

Remus did not like the group of other runners Lucius assembled, a handful of young men who had all been released from Azkaban through engineered loopholes after the War.

"Minerva, are you really going to let him sell Polyjuice?" he implored her one night as they shared a roast chicken in her kitchen. "When it was just you and me, it seemed like we were just doing it to help people like us, people who couldn't forget."

"And why are we in a situation where we owe so much debt to Lucius Malfoy, Remus?" she snapped back.

"Merlin," he muttered.

She softened looking at him. The full moon had just come and gone, and he looked a mess. They hadn't scraped together enough that month for the Wolfsbane, and despite offering her heavily warded cellar, Remus had chosen to go off God knows where to deal with his burden. There were other werewolves, she knew, and it seemed to be their sport to pick on him when he joined their group.

"I'm sorry, Remus," she said, reloading his plate with mashed potatoes, "but this seems to be our situation now."

After he left, she sat down at her desk and wrote to Lucius.

_It's not enough. I've seen your home now, and your inventory. I know enough to indict you doubly over us._

In the morning, she had her answer.

_His Wolfsbane, every month. I'll brew it myself._


	2. Chapter 2

Remus was waiting for Lucius to finish a set of vials for him to go peddle. This had become an annoying part of Remus's life – Lucius loved to make people wait. He'd let Remus sit on a stool for hours sometimes, just watching as Lucius bottled everything down to the precise drop. He'd offer to come back later and Lucius would defer him.

"I'll only be a minute," he'd say, after 45 had already passed, and then he'd add a single leaf to a beaker.

"Why do you do this?" Remus asked him. "Surely there is not enough money to be made in taking over a rinky-dink drug ring run by an old lady and a miscreant to interest you."

"Perhaps not right now," Lucius agreed. "But Minerva is a confidant and friend to so many people who can't sleep at night. Anyone I know plagued by the same nightmares is in Azkaban."

"And?"

"Don't be dim when I know you aren't. Word will spread. Things will grow."

Remus fell silent as Lucius began the painstaking process of pouring his creation into bottles.

"How have you been feeling lately?" Lucius chanced to ask. "With, you know…your condition."

Remus froze up. That was supposed to be his secret, just him and people who loved him.

"I can't believe she told you," he muttered.

"Poor boy. It's hardly a secret for anyone with a calendar. I'm sorry I brought it up."

That was the truth Remus hated to acknowledge.

"It's better," he begrudged. "Minerva has had enough for the Wolfsbane potion for the past few months. So as long as I never stop selling potions in seedy alleyways, I can live a long and successful life."

"Isn't that a blessing," Lucius murmured.

* * *

Someone grabbed Remus by his cloak as he was finishing up his rounds to the usual customers that day.

"Veritaserum," the voice behind him growled.

"It'll cost you," Remus replied, voice two octaves lower and holding on hard to his built-up persona. He never felt himself in these dealings.

A piece of parchment slid into his hand, and then the man was gone.

Remus rubbed the creases out of the parchment again and again at his little desk that night. No harm could realistically come to them if he did nothing with this man's name and vague instructions on how to find him. He could toss it away and make excuses if he ever saw the man – just called Constantin from the note – again.

But Veritaserum was nearly impossible to acquire through permitted channels. Lucius would brew it, that was certain, and if they could get the reputation for it there was hardly another potion that could be so lucrative. This could be a life for him in a world that didn't want him.

* * *

The gate at the end of the long drive was open, which was unusual. Remus had expected that he would have to ring the bell; he had been rehearsing what he would say for an hour beforehand. He only realized he had made a mistake when he went around the last hedge and saw the manor entirely lit up, with people spilling out onto the steps and music playing. He turned on his heel to run away, but a voice called out and dress shoes crunched across the gravel towards him.

"Remus!" Lucius called. When he got closer, far enough to be out of earshot to the group he had left, Remus smelled alcohol and smoke on his breath. Lucius touched his shoulder and turned them both away from the light. "What are you doing here?"

"I had some news, a new request from a client. But of course I'll go."

"Nonsense," Lucius replied, raising his voice then so that everyone would surely hear. "You must stay."

And then he smiled a smile that made Remus realize why everyone called Lucius Malfoy handsome.

* * *

Remus kept protesting up the drive and through a terrace door that led them into a still room of drop cloth covered furniture.

"You can get some robes over those dirty old trousers in a moment," Lucius implored.

"But I really don't want to go to the party."

"Oh, but you must. It will show everyone how far I've come."

"Oh, well since you put it so generously…" Remus rolled his eyes.

Lucius was ushering Remus further into the house and up a back staircase.

"Excuse the dust," Lucius said, and Remus thought of the thick stepping stones of dust that led to his room in a shared ramshackle townhouse.

They ended up in a closet Remus could hardly see across, and Lucius snapped his fingers to summon an elf. After a lengthy set of instructions, he turned back to Remus.

"Dobby will take you downstairs when you're ready," he announced, and left them alone.

Remus sat like a child as the elf brushed his hair and tied his tie.

"Er, could I have a drink now?" he asked the little being. "Just a lager."

"Of course, sir," the elf squeaked, and a pint glass and a shot appeared beside him.

"I suppose it's that obvious that I'm nervous. Cheers, mate."

The elf didn't reply, and Remus took his shot in silence.

* * *

The party was crowded enough to blend in, and Lucius was nowhere to be seen when Remus was deposited, slightly tipsy, at the bottom of the stairs. He accepted several drinks in a row while making brisk rounds, nodding pleasantly at people who didn't seem to recognize him with his hair pushed back.

"What are you doing here?" someone hissed just as he was about to settle against a wall and watch the dancing for a moment. Severus Snape was standing beside him, looking less polished than even Remus.

"Drop it, Severus," he replied over the rim of his glass. "It seems we were both invited. It may even happen again as life goes on. Can we not just ignore each other?"

Strangely, Snape leaned up against the wall as well.

"No one is speaking to you either," he said. "So I'll just stand here."

It was pleasant to watch the comings and goings. This was so different from the grimy life Lupin had lived – since leaving Hogwarts, he had hardly had a new pair of shoes. But now he was being invited into a world where diamonds flowed like water and there were no consequences, even for the worst of deeds.

Snape made sniping remarks occasionally, pointing out people who were dancing too closely with someone who was not their wife or who couldn't stay away from the bar. Remus merely smiled each time, although he _was_ glad to have a partner in this.

"Lucius is obviously high," Severus remarked at one point.

"What?" Remus replied, snapping back from his reverie.

Severus gave him a queer, sidelong look.

"Lucius takes his own manipulation of Felix Felicis constantly. Less about the luck and more about the feeling. I'd use the word addiction except he'd murder me for it."

Remus chewed on this. Now there was a surprise. Lucius always seemed so fully in control of himself, and yet apparently most of the time he was riding the effects of a potion that most people never had the chance to so much as taste.

Severus left eventually, muttering about how he had traded nighttime rounds for an early breakfast duty at Hogwarts, and Remus began to circulate again, although he really wanted to go home, however dank of a home it was. But he must have been all dressed up for a reason, and he couldn't go without having even a bit of the conversation he was there for.

It must have been very late; all of the other guests in the thin crowd were falling down drunk, and he wasn't so steady himself. Lucius was tucked into an alcove with Narcissa, twirling her hair around his finger and whispering into her neck, but when Remus glided by them a second time, he pushed her gently aside with a promise to return.

"So, why did you come?" Lucius asked, steering Remus out into the entryway, which was empty but littered with lost gloves and cigar bands.

"Thanks for asking. It's only been 6 hours."

"And you've been handsomely fed and watered throughout. When was the last time you had wine this good?"

Remus grimaced at him.

"Never, as I suspected," Lucius finished.

"Someone grabbed me and asked for Veritaserum. I assume you'd make it for us."

Lucius's lip curled.

"And you came straight here? What about Minerva?" he asked.

"I just…I wanted to know you'd do it before I worried her." Remus was stumbling over his words.

"I already have it brewing," Lucius smiled. "Such good luck."


End file.
